WE’RE FUNNY CREATURES, WE HUMANS. We have an amazing ability to hide the truth of our lives, or a situation, for a very long time. We can deceive others and, more importantly, ourselves with surprising dexterity.
There are several examples of this type of behavior, and frankly, we all engage in it to a degree. Whether it is the “that little piece of chocolate cake wont hurt me” or the “I’m only underreporting my income a little to the IRS,” the fact is that we all have our moments of untruthfulness.
The thing is, we generally find that we have to defend those positions — mostly out of a sense of ego, and a fear of being “found out.” It happens when I gain an extra few pounds and blame the dry cleaners for shrinking my pants. Now the fact that the same dry cleaners has been washing the same pair of pants for a year, and it’s never been a problem before is pretty much irrelevant when I have to look in the mirror and decide to accept the blame for my overeating, or place the blame on someone else.
We love to take the easy route out, I see it all the time. Heck, I do it a lot of the time.
I was in court on a custody matter, and the mom didn’t want the dad to have a two-week vacation with his 13-year-old son. She claimed it was “uncomfortable for him” to be around dad’s new wife — except that the son spends every weekend and most Wednesday evenings with Dad and his new wife, and has for a year. Then it was, “we have a family trip planned,” which wasn’t planned and was only a day trip to Lego Land, that she hadn’t bought the tickets for.
This continued, and I’ll spare you’re the truly gory details, but the truth of the situation eventually revealed itself to be this — Mom can’t let go of her baby. Even though Dad is a good dad, and the kid is safe in his care.
Once the real issue is revealed, we can then deal with it, but until it becomes clear to everyone, well, everyone but Mom, that she is just not ready to let go, the real issue cannot be dealt with.
“Full responsibility” — I frankly don’t really give two hoots in hell about whose bed villaraigosa’s shoes are under... What I do care about is the fact that they are allowed to be deceitful and that we give them a pass on it, once they do the speech
We have several scandals going on in the Southland, and in the world. There is the wandering eye (and more) of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and the turning a blind eye of the City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo to the infractions in his own home.
Both of these men have done the obligatory,“I take full responsibility” speeches that their political handlers have told them they must do in order to get past the scandals. Personally, I’m getting tired of people taking full responsibility, when in reality, what they are doing is making a sacrifice to the media gods so that they can get back on the campaign trail to continue doing what they just took full responsibility for.
To me, this is another example of the “issue is not the issue.” I frankly don’t really give two hoots in hell about whose bed Villaraigosa’s shoes are under, or that the City Attorney of Los Angeles has such a forgetful wife. What I do care about is the fact that they are allowed to be deceitful and that we give them a pass on it, once they do the “Full Responsibility” speech.
Does anyone really know what that speech means? In theory, if you are taking responsibility for something you also intend to take some action in regards to what it is you are responsible for. But you must first acknowledge your behavior and your true motivations in order to do so.
Like the mother in my custody case, until the “responsible parties” get down to the real issues, it doesn’t make much difference if they take responsibility or not, if they don’t know what they are responsible for. Villaraigosa took responsibility for his cheating on his wife, but that’s not the issue we should care about — the issue is his deception of the electorate — making those who voted for him think he was something he’s not. Same thing goes for Delgadillo. He ran as a law and order guy, but he’s not enforcing it in his own home.
The list could go on, like I said, we all do it to some degree. The question is this, what issues are really important that our leaders need to take responsibility for, and what issues are non-starters.
For me, I don’t care who a politician is knocking boots with, I do care about who is paying for their campaigns, and can they keep their promises. But I suppose, if they can’t figure out what they are responsible for in their personal lives, I shouldn’t expect them to know what to be responsible for in their professional lives.
DAVID PISARRA is a Family Law Attorney in the Santa Monica law firm of Pisarra & Grist. He (310) 664-9969 or
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 7, 2007. Read the original PDF.